Did you know that the NCP utilities for Linux are capable of mounting Netware 5 server volumes via IP as well as IPX? Up until this morning, I didn’t. I’ve been jumping through hoops for years, setting things up so that my Linux machines can see the fileserver. As of now, I have a lot fewer hoops to jump through.

For what it’s worth, the trick is to use the “-A xx.xx.xx.xx” option (or the “ipserver=xx.xx.xx.xx” in /etc/fstab if you’re doing it like I am). That tells the ncp code to use UDP instead of IPX. You still have to supply the server name, though.

Nifty. Damned nifty. Removing complexity is a good thing.

If you’re still seeing the border around the center column, and there’s no pretty picture above the new logo, make sure to refresh your browser window. Holding down ‘Ctrl’ and tapping the ‘R’ on your keyboard usually does the trick. If it doesn’t, then you’ll need to clear your cache somehow.

I only mention it because I’ve been taking all sorts of queries in the last two days from people who tell me “it looks all messed up,” or some variant thereof.

I’ve been moderately discontent with the website design here for well over a year. One thing I believed the site needed was some actual imagery, and yesterday I came across some nifty PHP code that allowed me to display a randomly selected image.

My first attempt involved just tucking a rectangular image in the upper left corner, and adjusting a few things around it to make it fit. It was a fine bit of geek-fu, but Dawn pointed out what it looked like: an ugly, geeky hack. The layout was completely destroyed by this monstrosity I’d perched on its corner.

After considerable discussion and tinkering and websurfing, I set upon the path to what you see now. I removed the border around the center content. (Internet Exploder never rendered it correctly anyway, showing a thick black border where a grooved grey border should have been.) I extended the center column upward. I added a relatively subtle tiled background to the sides. I created a logo. And then, I put the image rotator code back into service as the background for the page element in which the logo lives. Other bits of tinkering included moving the random tagline and rearranging the navigation columns.

What I have now… ain’t half bad. In fact, I’m quite pleased. A heartfelt “Thank You!” to Dawn for helping me realize this new design!

So where do tired heroes go when they want a good place to sit and eat?

I swear I’m not making this up…

Thinking about those hero portraits from last night reminded me that I have yet to mine my City of Heroes gaming for journal fodder. So here goes:

I may not have accomplished much this weekend, but I finally leveled all of my characters on the Protector server to 7 or above. For the longest time I had heroes languishing around 3, 4 and 5. No longer! Each hero has at least one Pool power and has left their starting zone for adventures in the (slightly) more dangerous parts of the world.

A player can have eight characters on a given server, and I’ve filled all eight slots on Protector (as well as a couple on Pinnacle). I know there are people who play one character almost exclusively, with an “alt” or two to relieve the boredom. I’m such a dilettante, though, that I get a kick out of playing any and all of my heroes. Why? Because I want to see what they can do! That’s the whole point, leveling up and trying out new things.

Heck, I’m already thinking that I don’t have enough different build types. I caught myself this morning wondering who I could blow out on Protector to make room for a new build… then realized “oh, duh, I can just build heroes on another server.”

So if you run into Arctic Ant, Woods Cutter, ProPaine, Rossum’s Fist, Spiny Echidna, Myne alMyne, NeutrinoStorm or Charger Man while playing on the Protector server, feel free to say hello. They’re all friendly, outgoing sorts of fellows…